Kansas City, Missouri Hosts First Annual Literary Festival

On May 19, 2007 from 10am-6pm, Kansas City hosts its first annual celebration of books, writers and reading, the Kansas City Literary Festival. The event will be held on the Country Club Plaza. Scheduled events promise a day jam-packed with entertainment, book making, interactive workshops with participating authors, author exhibits, and fun activities for the kids. A broad array of brews, fermented and non-fermented, and food will be available at the Books and Brew Lounge sponsored by Brio on the Plaza.

David Ernst, president and founder of Book-A-Friend has been working on bringing this event to Kansas City for several years. The non-profit, which is sponsoring the event, is "dedicated to enhancing the literary landscape of communities through events like this one." While doing the groundwork, fundraising, contacting the city's literary organizations and seeking supporting sponsors, he began to seek out individuals to help him make the event happen. As a result of his inquiries and research, he recruited Valissa Smith, a local former broadcast journalist and owner of VSquared Productions, Inc., to act as festival director.

She emphasizes that people, who are considering whether or not to put KCLF on their Saturday agenda, should not consider it a book fair. "We're doing it more as a celebration. We are well read.* We enjoy good books, so let's celebrate that. This event is about keeping books in our everyday lives. There's something very nurturing about pulling a book off a shelf, curling up in a chair and absorbing yourself in a book," she said.

According to Smith over 60 authors have been invited, but there will be "upwards of 100" when exhibitors and those administering workshops are counted as well. Some of the more notable writers attending are Jennifer Weiner, author of In Her Shoes which became a movie starring Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine, Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner and local writer Lewis Duiguid, a Kansas City Star columnist and author of A Teacher's Cry; Expose the Truth About Education Today.